Training AI to Play StarCraft

AI research firm DeepMind has partnered with Blizzard Entertainment to publish a set of tools called SC2LE to help researchers develop AI systems that can play StarCraft II, one of the most popular video games. SC2LE consists of an API, developer tools, and a dataset of 65,000 game replays that researchers can use as training data to help their systems play the game, which involves much more complex problem-solving than video games normally used to train AI systems. DeepMind will expand the SC2LE dataset to include 1 million game replays in the coming weeks.

Michael Steinberg is a Google policy fellow at the Center for Data Innovation, where he researches open data issues in government. He was previously an editorial fellow at GovLoop where he wrote content on modernizing government technologies. Prior to joining GovLoop, Michael was a research fellow at the Partnership for Public Service, a paralegal for an intellectual property law firm, and he held internships on Capitol Hill, at the National Archives, and in local government. Michael is a graduate of the University of Maryland in College Park, where he double majored in Government and Sociology. He is currently a second year Master’s of Public Policy student at George Washington University specializing in technology policy.